Gunnison
SnowpackEric Murrow · Mar 4, 2025 · Gunnison
Weather
Around 2-3 inches were along the skin track in the morning, even near treeline. Heavier pulses in the afternoon and banded snow left up to 7 inches of new snow by 245 pm. Winds were sporadic in strength throughout the day. Some strong gusts drifting snow in open areas. cloud cover: overcast; wind loading: moderate; recent snowfall (cm): 16; snow avail for transport: moderate amounts
Snowpack
Our goal was to check on the new snow and wind drifting. The typical places along the Red Lady skin track hadn't formed Wind Slabs around midday up through 11,900 feet. Once we found drifts in other places, cracks were easy to produce, and we triggered a couple of small avalanches on drifted east features.. Avalanches failed about an inch up from the old crust. Sheltered areas, with 7 inches of new snow, showed no signs of instability outside of some minor sluffing. I dug a quick profile on an east-southeast feature at 11,300 feet (115 degrees) and found meltwater from last week's warm-up drained through the entire snowpack around 130cm deep. Ice columns were present throughout. Columns in the midwinter and December drought layers were quite thin due to the weak faceted grains, allowing the meltwater to drain quickly. I don't suspect any future Wet Slab issues with this structure as weak layers have been wetted, but the thinness of the ice columns is something I haven't encountered much before. . Cracking occurred where the winds drifted snow. The typical leeward features along the Red Lady skin track has little drifting as we passed by midday. On our descent, we found several drifts on an east feature at 11,000 feet and intentionally triggered 2 small avalanches. Drifts up to 16" deep didn't extend far down the slope.